Thursday, September 22, 2016

As I got me a copy of Dan Merseys latest rules "The Men Who Would Be Kings" I thought I needed to paint me some new minis for the Darkest Africa....

For Darkest Afrika games in 28mm you have a bunch of lovely metal minis from Foundry and also from North Star, but as you know I like to cut cost by using plastics...

So I decided to go for some Zanzibar Slavers using the Gripping Bests lovely plastic medieval Arab Spearmen and Archers box as a base for them. In a box I get 40 minis so it would be enough to build me 3 units of 12 minis with 4 extras.

The units I will build from the box are:

12 +4 Arab Askaris

12 Baluchis

12 Ruga-Ruga

To get the minis in the box moving from the medievaltimes to 19th century I used a bunch of left over muskets from different Perry plastic Napoleonic and ACW boxes, as well as the Perry Sudanes box. I used some heads from the Wargames Factory Zulu box for the Ruga-Ruga. I also had some left over heads, swords, shields from the Gripping Beast Mounted Arab boxes that come in handy.

Here are a bunch of pictures of the 40 minia I built, painting next...

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Today I got my copy of Osprey latest wargaming rules,The Men Who Would Be Kings writen by my matey Daniel Mersey, his 4th rule set in the Osprey wargaming serie, and the 5th will be published in January...

The Men Who Would Be Kings use the same rule engine as in Lion Rampant and Dragon Rampant but with some twists to give a better Colonial wargaming flawour.

I have participated in the playtest and i like the rules even if Colonial wargaming is not my major era. I also manged to get two pictures in the book:)

"The Men Who Would Be Kings is a set of rules designed for fighting historical or Hollywood colonial battles in the mid to late 19th Century, from the Indian Mutiny to the Boxer Rebellion. Large scale colonial clashes tended to be one-sided affairs, but there are countless reports of brief, frantic skirmishes in every colonial war, where either side could be victorious, and these are the battles that The Men Who Would Be Kings seeks to recreate. Although focusing on the British colonial wars against the Zulus, Maoris and others, these rules will also permit players to explore the empires of France, Germany, and other nations, as well as allowing for battles between rival native factions. Gameplay is very simple, and is driven by the quality of the officers leading your units, in the true spirit of Victorian derring-do and adventure, where larger than life characters such as the (real) Fred Burnaby and the (fictional) Harry Flashman led their troops to glory and medals or a horrible end at the point of a spear tip."

Thursday, September 15, 2016

As you know I during the summer buillt me a Gun Yawl for my Finnish War 1808 project and of course I needed to use it in a game:)

So I found the Landing at Lemo that took place on June 19 with landing and initial fighting and on the 20th the actuall battle at lemo took place rendering in the russians puching back the Swedes so they had to retreat back to the landing fleet.

Anyway... I put together a small scenario for Sharps Practice inspired bu the landing at lemo on the evening on the 19th June 1808. The area, slightely compressed, depicted on the gaming table are the area withing the red squar on the maps.

I have now have played it out two times, in the first game my matey Mattias commanded the Swedes and in the Second game my matey Jonas commanded the Swedes and I commanded the Russians in both games.

Below you will find OOB for both games, hade some adjustments for the second game using smaller forces to get a quicker game. For the Russians I used the Army list from TFL blog and for the Swedes I used my own army list that you can find in Wargames Soldiers and Starategy magazine Issue 86

In both games the Force Morale was 10 for each force. The Objective for the Swedes was to execute the littoral landing and seize the Russians primary Deployment Point to get a beach head. For the Russians the objective was to seize the Swedish primary deployment point to stop the littoral landing and throw the Swedes back in to the sea. In the first game we used only a Primary Deployment for each force but in the second game we used a Primary and a Secondary deployment point.

The two games developed in different ways, of course much due to the card activation and tiffin card that can be very hard at some occations, not letting you activate your units but it is also give a very good fog of battle effect that I really like.

Game 1

Here are a short re-cap of the first game. I splitted the 6 russian Units in 3 different units of 2 groups each sending 2 of them out on a quick march along the road as the last one was advancing forward the coast line through the farm. The Swedes started of lightly only deploying a group of skirmishers...much due to bacd activation cards...

My Russians got plenty of time to surounding the swedish Deployment Point so when the Swedes at last sent ashore their main unit and also sent in the Gun Yawl the Russians already had good possitions.

The final blow to the Swedes was the Russian Hussars that after some de tours managed to cross the fence and at the gallop charged in to a unit of Swedish Line Infantry... the Hussars had to withdraw but the 2 groups in the Swedish formation broke and the loss of Force Morale for the Swedes was to high... Russian Victory !

Game 2

This was a smaller game just 3 officer on each side and we also used an additionall Deployment Point for each force. I was opting for the same king of tactic in this game, leting my Russian forces use the road to make a quick advance to box in the Swedes by their Primary Deployment point.

My plan worked fine to an start, my Skirmishers really made a rapid advance on the right flank aiming to capture one of the Swedish Deployment Points. My 2 groups of Grenadiers also made a good advance throught the small farm. BUT... my main unit under command of Colonel Vadovsky didn´t reallu live up to their reputation from the first game... road moves are good as you get an extra D6 in the move, but that dosent matter if you roll 1´s on most of the dices...several turns... and if the Commander manages to lose the Map of the area so he have to spend an entire activation to look for the way you won´t be to happy...

When my main Officer after several turns at last had found his way to his possition in the Battle line the Russian Grenadiers and Skirmishers was so beaten that they was on the run...